The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption

2020 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalist

“A superb journalist, in the most honorable tradition of that craft.”
—Howard Zinn

The “quintessential unembedded reporter” (Jeremy Scahill) undertakes a global quest to discover how we will cope with our planet’s changing ecosystems

After spending nearly a decade overseas as a war reporter, Dahr Jamail returns to America and renews his passion for mountaineering, only to find that the slopes he had once climbed have been irrevocably changed by climate disruption. In response Jamail embarks on a journey that takes him from Alaska to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, via Guam and the Amazon rainforest, to try and comprehend the heartbreaking fact that humans have irreparably changed the planet and a child born today will live in a completely different world than her parents.

In The End of Ice , Jamail’s evocative chronicle of his journey, the author is accompanied by climate scientists, photographers, and people whose families have fished, farmed, and lived in the areas he visits for centuries. As his journey continues Jamail begins to accept the fact that Earth, most likely, is in a hospice situation. Ironically, this allows him to renew his passion for the planet’s wild places, cherishing Earth in a way he has never been able to before.

Like no other book, The End of Ice chronicles both the catastrophic reality of our situation and the incalculable necessity of relishing this vulnerable, fragile planet while we still can.